Health

Turns out that this eating real food thing isn’t that hard, so as long as you go to the grocery store. Clearly Andy and I need to go shopping as the inside of our refrigerator looks like it’s been ravaged by displaced zombie apocalypse survivors.

On the bright side, we do have lots of eggs in stock, which was perfect for breakfast after my first workout of 2016. I sauted some cherry tomatoes and onions in olive oil, added some leftover grilled chicken, then added two eggs. Super protein packed, but really good. All I did for spices was add some black pepper. Topped that off with a glass of pineapple juice.

But, oh man am I hurting, and all I did was run a mile and a half. Turns out if you don’t use your body, you pay for it later. Did about a 14-minute mile at the gym, which isn’t horrible, but when I used to run 5Ks with an 11:35 mile it’s certainly disheartening. Thought I could get right back on that treadmill.

But, that is no reason to beat myself up. Getting off my butt to get moving is certainly a positive step in the right direction. I just need to ease into it, eat real food (read: not out of a box), and drink lots of water. I’m sure a lot of you out there are also taking extra Tylenol as January starts and trying to ease sore muscles. It WILL get better. We haven’t been working out lately, so you shouldn’t expect your body to just bounce right back to where you left off. We can do this 2016. Patience is the game.

Oh, it’s the first of the year? Must be that time of year again where I promise to do all these magical things, hype myself up to get better, fitter, and healthier, and then motivate myself for a few months before something throws me off course.

OK, I don’t have to put myself down before I get started. In truth, 2015 was probably one of the best years of my life: I got a new job that I couldn’t be happier about, Andy and I have officially kicked off our company My Country Story which has been thriving, and things around the house have been so good that only positive things can come for it all.

The one thing that is lacking is motivation to workout, eat healthier, and stay on track to fit back into the piles of clothes that have been waiting for me. There’s something disheartening when you look at your scale app (yes, I have a crazy scale that keeps track of my weight), and the scale says you’ve gained 25 pounds in the last year. Seriously, can that be correct??!?!

So… I’m making a promise to get healthy. Drop the weight, go back to the gym, back to running, eat healthier, and start Real Eating. The last part is due to Andy. He really wanted to give Whole30 another go, but I panicked. I can let go of the bread and beans if I have to. And as much as it sucks, I really did feel a whole lot better when we were eating healthy, not drinking, and staying away from ice cream and sweets. But we talked about it and came up with another plan: don’t eat any processed foods.

It seemed simple until I started breaking a lot of things down. Yes, we could have rice, but we couldn’t have pasta (unless we made it ourselves). Yes to milk, but not cheese or butter (again, only if we made it ourselves). That also means no candy, alcohol, or take-out. No crackers, no chips, no Dunkin Donut frozen drinks, no mayo.

Yes, that does mean that we can still have the following if we make it ourselves, from SCRATCH: bread, pasta, salsa, cookies, cake, frosting, muffins… The list goes on. The thing is, most of the time, by the time I’d make what I want, I no longer want it. So the bonus is the time to make something will buffer any snacking time.

I’m actually very excited about this, because I won’t want to spend the time making cupcakes, cookies, or hot cocoa. And it’s very unlikely that I would be stuffing recipes with extra sugar.

I’ve poured through some of my favorite cookbooks, recipe boxes, blogs, and I’m asking that if you want to make a change, do so. Do it now. Don’t wait. Even small changes can make the difference of a lifetime.

Let’s be honest. I should be dreaming about bowls of pasta, peanut butter whoopie pies, and mounds of rice, but I’m not. In fact, being on The Whole 30, my mind has changed how I think about food. And I’m not sure yet if that’s a good thing. I don’t have time to consider grabbing a doughnut or going out for dinner, it’s too much work to realize it’s against the rules. Continue Reading

When I lived in France, I ate more unusual things that I ever have living in the US. I tried pâté (loved it) and head cheese (don’t ever bring that gelatinous mess near me). And one of the most famed items was a mushroom pie my friend Lauren’s host family made for us. It was literally just layers of mushroom in a pie crust. Not that appetizing.

However, I did learn to love quiche, particularly Quiche Lorraine (ham and cheese) that was served at my college snack shack. It wasn’t even that crazy of a concept, just an egg pie with meats and cheese.

So when my friend Hannah emailed me a recipe for a Whole 30 approved quiche, I said, why not?! The best part, I still had a crust. The recipe called for replacing a bready crust with sweet potatoes.